Halting the loss of biodiversity in the Netherlands

EU action plan on biodiversity: apply existing instruments more effectively

The European Commission’s proposal

Biodiversity trends in the Netherlands and the EU remain negative, while European Union Heads of State and Government have repeatedly agreed to halt the loss of biodiversity in the EU by 2010. The Commission’s recent Communication on halting the loss of biodiversity does not suggest new policy but presents a detailed action plan on how to promote biodiversity conservation by having Member States apply existing EU instruments in a more targeted fashion.

Consequences for the Netherlands

Key actions to halt further loss of biodiversity in the Netherlands are the streamlining of both Natura 2000 and the National Ecological Network in development by connecting the conservation of nature areas with the management of the wider countryside, and by improving environmental conditions for nature. The existing EU instruments cited in the Commission’s new action plan, such as the Water Framework Directive, the NEC Directive and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) do indeed provide a supportive framework for biodiversity conservation in the Netherlands. However, despite promising local developments, the potential of these instruments to protect biodiversity in day-to-day policy implementation has not yet been fully exploited.

Consequences for the European Commission and Parliament

To be able to evaluate the effects of the action plan, the European Commission needs to stimulate additional actions. First of all, the Commission can promote EU-wide understanding of the connection of Natura 2000 with other designated nature areas, and can identify ecological bottlenecks in the network on the European scale. Secondly, discussions in the European Parliament on biodiversity would benefit from an annual European nature balance that reports, on the one hand, on the ecological coherence of European nature areas and ecological bottlenecks, and on the other, on the effectiveness of EU and national policies.